Kindle textbook rentals arrive; used can still be cheaper

Amazon is now allowing customers to rent textbooks for viewing on Kindle apps …

College students amassing piles of money to pay for textbooks this fall may get a reprieve with a new Amazon rental program that gets them up to 80 percent off list prices. Kindle Textbook Rental allows students to rent textbooks and read them via the free Kindle reading apps, with book annotations preserved in the cloud storage after the rental period is up.

With Kindle apps available on several platforms—PC, Mac, iOS, Android, Windows Phone, and Blackberry—students who rent from Kindle Textbook Rental will have a number of offline viewing options. Students can choose their rental period as well, from 30 to 360 days.

As rental periods get longer, the price goes up, almost prohibitively so. While the rental price of books in the $100-120 range start at around $40, that cost can more than double for a semester-long rental to $80. Used books can often be found for cheaper: even a pricing rubric on the textbook rental info page shows a book following the above prices available used for $55. Unlike used editions, students lose the book at the end of the rental period.

Amazon points out that it allows students access to sections of the book they highlighted as well as annotations after the rental period ends, though presumably there are functional limits here (Amazon did not respond immediately to requests for clarification on that point).

Students can also still buy Kindle versions of textbooks, often at a hefty discount from list price. We can't vouch for the comfort of using a Kindle textbook over the real thing—especially if you have to flip to the answers in the back every two minutes for those grueling problem sets.

33 Reader Comments

Amazon points out that it allows students access to sections of the book they highlighted as well as annotations after the rental period ends, though presumably there are functional limits here (Amazon did not respond immediately to requests for clarification on that point).

Heh, yeah... I'm guessing they know about select-all, highlight.

I think I still own every textbook I used in college except my Art Appreciation textbook. I guess things have changed now that so much stuff is on the web, though, and since books can be outdated/obsolete fairly quickly.

This might be worthwhile if they had a rent-to-own option. You usually don't know if a book will be worth keeping until you are a good way into the semester. If you could pay the difference between the rental price and the purchase price and be allowed to keep it, then it could be a good way to try before you buy. But potentially having to buy the book at full price on top of the rental fees you already paid makes me even more likely to just buy it used to begin with.

This might be worthwhile if they had a rent-to-own option. You usually don't know if a book will be worth keeping until you are a good way into the semester. If you could pay the difference between the rental price and the purchase price and be allowed to keep it, then it could be a good way to try before you buy. But potentially having to buy the book at full price on top of the rental fees you already paid makes me even more likely to just buy it used to begin with.

You can. If you purchase a book during the rental period the rental price paid is subtracted from the total for the purchase.

I think the prices would have to come down to well below the used book price for this to really be useful. There are some advantages to using a kindle book, such as the ability to search and not having to lug around 40 pounds of books to class. However the fact that you don't have the option to keep them is a deterrent, as is the ability to quickly jump from section to section. Offering the option to buy after renting for the difference in price would be a nice addition to make this more appealing.

Edit: didn't see reflex-croft's post there. That does make it a bit nicer. I know for my first several semesters I sold back all of my books, but the textbooks I picked up later I still reference from time to time to this day.

I think the prices would have to come down to well below the used book price for this to really be useful. There are some advantages to using a kindle book, such as the ability to search and not having to lug around 40 pounds of books to class. However the fact that you don't have the option to keep them is a deterrent, as is the ability to quickly jump from section to section. Offering the option to buy after renting for the difference in price would be a nice addition to make this more appealing.

Edit: didn't see reflex-croft's post there. That does make it a bit nicer. I know for my first several semesters I sold back all of my books, but the textbooks I picked up later I still reference from time to time to this day.

Depending where you get an used book they aren't generally much cheaper than the new ones.

Used often isn't an option with the tendency of textbook publishers to put out a new edition every year (changing nothing except the numbers in the homework problems, of course), which makes this somewhat more attractive.

Also, the convenience of not having to lug around so many 5lb textbooks is quite tempting.

In fields like engineering, books don't really go out of date since the fields don't change very often (most engineering disciplines like civil, electrical, mechanical, chemical, et cetera). What you do see changing are the publishers adding a word here or a different problem here and then stamping a brand new edition on the book. And for engineering students this means like $600 to $700 per semester or quarter just for books since there are no used editions. One of my professors had probably the best way to go about making text books for the science majors: create a hard copy book with the material that won't change very often (every decade or so) and just print different editions of the problem sets. That way students only have to pay for the reference book once, and there will be plenty of used books out in the wild, and then students will only have to pay say $50 for the problem sets in a soft cover book.

As for the Kindle, it's my opinion that this method really doesn't work, because like the article said if you have to flip to the back to look up an answer or a solution method, a book will always be quicker at flipping to the back than a Kindle ever would.

When I was trying (again) to get through Infinite Jest (a book that is about 20% footnotes) I found that having two devices was the answer. Footnotes on the computer, main text on the kindle for example.

The nice thing about Amazon's solution is there are so many places you can read your content. Pretty much any smart phone or computer in addition to the Kindle devices.

I also wonder if the DRM will be any more complex to break than the current format.

Seems to me they still need a bigger incentive to convert the general student populace to e-readers. Yeah, hauling 25 lbs of books around was a pain but paper books still have an advantage in every other way except search function.

Color documents (likely PDF's) read on a more-functional tablet feels like the wave of technology that will succeed.

Seems to me they still need a bigger incentive to convert the general student populace to e-readers. Yeah, hauling 25 lbs of books around was a pain but paper books still have an advantage in every other way except search function.

Color documents (likely PDF's) read on a more-functional tablet feels like the wave of technology that will succeed.

Only if the color pdf's have extremely fast load times. Ever try flipping through a 500 page color PDF?

The thing with buying a used edition is that at the end of the semester, you can then sell your used edition to make back some of the cost. If you try to sell it back to the bookstore you generally won't make much ($200 books often sold back for $15 or $20, and were then resold for $150-180 used, because the used textbook market is a total racket), but it's still more than you would make with the Kindle version.

Also, who "flips through" the electronic version of anything? That's what the search feature is for, that and the hyperlinked index. That's the primary advantage of the electronic edition, a search feature. Unless of course it's one of those DRMed to hell PDFs that disable search, because the publishers really really want you to pirate it instead.

The thing with buying a used edition is that at the end of the semester, you can then sell your used edition to make back some of the cost. If you try to sell it back to the bookstore you generally won't make much ($200 books often sold back for $15 or $20, and were then resold for $150-180 used, because the used textbook market is a total racket), but it's still more than you would make with the Kindle version.

So don't sell it back to the bookstore, put it on amazon marketplace or craigslist or ebay. As long as your copy is still the latest version you'll get >75% of the current used price and sell it quickly if you price it right.

I really don't get the bitching about book prices. Buy it used, don't highlight every other paragraph, and resell it on amazon and you'll save yourself a bundle.

In fields like engineering, books don't really go out of date since the fields don't change very often (most engineering disciplines like civil, electrical, mechanical, chemical, et cetera). What you do see changing are the publishers adding a word here or a different problem here and then stamping a brand new edition on the book. And for engineering students this means like $600 to $700 per semester or quarter just for books since there are no used editions. One of my professors had probably the best way to go about making text books for the science majors: create a hard copy book with the material that won't change very often (every decade or so) and just print different editions of the problem sets. That way students only have to pay for the reference book once, and there will be plenty of used books out in the wild, and then students will only have to pay say $50 for the problem sets in a soft cover book.

"only" $50 for the problem sets in a soft cover?

I had a few classes that made me buy the softcover book, but most natural sciences and engineering depts at my school publish psets as PDF files to the class website. Some classes write their own problems; others reference problems in a hardcover textbook. And since the professors are smart, they keep using slightly older editions of textbooks with a much more mature used market.

Typically, I pay no more than $50 - $100 for books in a quarter. I can get a lot of my books from Amazon affiliates for $10-$15 a pop, which is awesome, and a lot of the computer science classes distribute the textbooks for free as PDF files since our CS department wrote a lot of the CS textbooks.

Given how cheap Amazon affiliates are, ironically this Kindle rent-a-text thing is way too expensive for my tastes

When I was trying (again) to get through Infinite Jest (a book that is about 20% footnotes) I found that having two devices was the answer. Footnotes on the computer, main text on the kindle for example..

I like the way you think. You are crafty like a fox. I get tired of the IJ footnotes after about 10 minutes, so I've been reading it for most of my adult life now.

Still way too expensive. I'd rather have a full color version of the book.

Full color isn't even the issue for me. I have a Kindle, and I love it for things like George R.R. Martin and Jim Butcher. It's fantastic. I would never want to try to read a text book (or computer reference book) on it. It's just too small, even in landscape mode. If there were an 8.5x11 e-ink solution with no keyboard taking up space on the front, I'd be all about it, but until someone comes out with that, I'd pass.

On using a Kindle for textbooks: It all depends on your classes. And yes, I was a college student with a Kindle.

If you are taking English, History, Philosophy classes, the Kindle is perfect. You have a lot of straight text, which you read straight through, maybe highlighting and annotating as you go. You can mark passages to quote later or sections to reread, but it's a more of a conventional "reading" experience. You sit down and read the book. For this, the Kindle can't be beat. Also, a good portion of your textbooks will be in the public domain, which means deliciously free.

For Engineering, Math, Physics, or the types of classes Ars readers would take, it ranges from less good to completely unusable. Anything with large illustrations, or where color is important, or where you need to flip back and forth between problem sets, it is not a convenient format. Honestly, the iPad (which I have one of as well), would not be much better. There's a time and a place for ebooks, and chemistry textbooks are not it.

To sum up, if you're going to sit down and read a thing, a Kindle is an appropriate solution, as is any other eReader. If you're going to spend 8 hours slaving over a handful of problems, referencing other sections of the book all the while, no eReader will really suit your needs. Shell out for paper. If you're lucky, someone smart has already annotated the margins of the used copy.

Just a word of advice that was kinda mentioned earlier: most textbooks don't change that much between versions so if we needed The History of Calculous Volume 5, I'd just pick up vol 3 or 4 on Amazon for usually less than $10. If I ever needed info I didn't have, a friend or the professor was more than happy to let me make a few copies of their book. I just explained what I had done and why.

I had a few classes that made me buy the softcover book, but most natural sciences and engineering depts at my school publish psets as PDF files to the class website. Some classes write their own problems; others reference problems in a hardcover textbook. And since the professors are smart, they keep using slightly older editions of textbooks with a much more mature used market.

Typically, I pay no more than $50 - $100 for books in a quarter. I can get a lot of my books from Amazon affiliates for $10-$15 a pop, which is awesome, and a lot of the computer science classes distribute the textbooks for free as PDF files since our CS department wrote a lot of the CS textbooks.

I wish I had gone to your school. My Intro to CS prof kept trying to sell us her book even though it wasn't used for the class. My other CS instructors couldn't be bothered to grade problems, let alone write them, and found the lowest bidding grad student to "grade" them. I once had to argue that I shouldn't have lost 5 points on a 2 point problem because the grader was so incompetent.

For Engineering, Math, Physics, or the types of classes Ars readers would take, it ranges from less good to completely unusable. Anything with large illustrations, or where color is important, or where you need to flip back and forth between problem sets, it is not a convenient format. Honestly, the iPad (which I have one of as well), would not be much better. There's a time and a place for ebooks, and chemistry textbooks are not it.

I agree - for now. I have a similar position on using laptops for note-taking. Granted, I went to school before laptops took off (meaning maybe two people out of a class of 30 would have them), but I remember the solution not being there for typing mathematical formula and technical diagrams at anywhere near the speed needed to keep up with an upper-level physics class. The newest technology is not always the best approach. But I understand that people come up with solutions, and technology progresses. I am glad that companies are at least trying out the 'textbook as an electronic rental' model, even if isn't quite what we'd like it to be just yet.

<p>As far as the constantly-revised texts problem, it really depends who your prof is (and whether your school administration has a position on the issue which they push onto the profs). I've heard people complain about the problem, but I personally never ran into a case where the previous year's text, with the exceptional of eratta, was substantively different from the current year's. The situation was even better for the advanced classes, where the texts tend to be one or two 'classic' texts. For example, Jackson's Electrodynamics has had only three editions: 1st in 1962, 2nd in 1975, third in 1998.

Amazon seems to be competing with itself in this arena. I've found used textbooks through affiliates that were so cheap that I actually made money selling them back to the school at the end of the semester.

I agree - for now. I have a similar position on using laptops for note-taking. Granted, I went to school before laptops took off (meaning maybe two people out of a class of 30 would have them), but I remember the solution not being there for typing mathematical formula and technical diagrams at anywhere near the speed needed to keep up with an upper-level physics class.

It's been a good while since I've gone to school, but I know someone who swears by Tablet PCs and OneNote for this purpose.

Personally, after trying out the HTC Flyer recently, I'd be tempted to spring for one of those if I ever went back to school. They're small and light, and they seem great for taking notes.

I have found that there exists a growing inventory of electronic textbooks available, whether on amazon or torrents. Say what you will about the costs - they are guaranteed to be MUCH CHEAPER than at the campus bookstore any day...I found a book for my Number Theory class listed at 170$ in the campus store, scanned the barcode and proceeded to order it for almost 1/3 that cost on amazon right there. I overheard one of the store managers bitching about that exact practice but what I fail to understand is ....why don't they just purchase their books from amazon and mark them up $10 - $20. If the cost difference is not that much (essentially the cost of shipping or slightly more) then I would be more inclined to purchase the book directly from the college. The small businesses lay claim that Amazon and the likes are destroying their business model, and they may be right, but don't expect college students to afford the outrageous prices when they can get it delivered for significantly less....We are already getting bent over, sans lube, in tuition fees as it is.

To sum up, if you're going to sit down and read a thing, a Kindle is an appropriate solution, as is any other eReader. If you're going to spend 8 hours slaving over a handful of problems, referencing other sections of the book all the while, no eReader will really suit your needs. Shell out for paper. If you're lucky, someone smart has already annotated the margins of the used copy.

I have bought some used books precisely because I thought the previous owner was smart. It's a bit of a cool bonus.

Still way too expensive. I'd rather have a full color version of the book.

Depending on your course, a color textbook is just not that important. Sure if you are an art major that probably holds no weight. (And for those people I would simply say wait for the technology to arrive). The Nook Color is actually pretty terrible when you consider it as an eBook reader. With companies like PixelQi experimenting with hybrid screen technology, and the prospective to earn massive amounts of advertising revenue once color and video technologies are perfected for these devices, it is only a matter of time before you will have full color text books with the bonus of links to outside sources and even video clips with commentary from the author or experts on the topic. Personally, I wish we had this kind of technology around when I was younger - would have been so much easier than carrying 10+ heavy-ass textbooks that's for damn sure...

I have found that there exists a growing inventory of electronic textbooks available, whether on amazon or torrents. Say what you will about the costs - they are guaranteed to be MUCH CHEAPER than at the campus bookstore any day...I found a book for my Number Theory class listed at 170$ in the campus store, scanned the barcode and proceeded to order it for almost 1/3 that cost on amazon right there. I overheard one of the store managers bitching about that exact practice but what I fail to understand is ....why don't they just purchase their books from amazon and mark them up $10 - $20. If the cost difference is not that much (essentially the cost of shipping or slightly more) then I would be more inclined to purchase the book directly from the college. The small businesses lay claim that Amazon and the likes are destroying their business model, and they may be right, but don't expect college students to afford the outrageous prices when they can get it delivered for significantly less....We are already getting bent over, sans lube, in tuition fees as it is.

They can't because they have to pay rent, utilities, staff salaries, and stuff like that. You can rest assured that they didn't pay $150 for that textbook from the publisher, but they can't afford to charge $50 for it either because they have relatively low volume and lots of fixed costs. In most schools the bookstores are either are or are treated like small companies that happen to rent their space from the university and sell books. The problem of course is that outside of the month or so around the start of each semester, the business is pretty damn slow, so they have to have high markup to cover their costs.

Personally, I would not shed a tear if most campus bookstores just went out of business and students instead had to just order their books from Amazon or Ebay or wherever. He could save a ton on his costs and pass them on to the students (yes it's a dream). Maybe you could have a guy with a tent show up for a week in a common area somewhere with big piles of the most common books each semester to avoid overloading the local postal system, but keeping the bookstore open for those 10 months of the year where there is little business doesn't seem to make much sense to me.

May not be legal or moral but with the thousands I spent on books in college, the first thing I would do as a student with this setup is go in with other students, pool money to buy or rent ebook versions and strip the drm or convert to another format. One copy of each split many ways and shared would have saved me a fortune. Maybe a dick move but I know I'd have done it.

May not be legal or moral but with the thousands I spent on books in college, the first thing I would do as a student with this setup is go in with other students, pool money to buy or rent ebook versions and strip the drm or convert to another format. One copy of each split many ways and shared would have saved me a fortune. Maybe a dick move but I know I'd have done it.

Dick Move! My girlfriend works for one of the biggest book publishers around. - Lol but I hear you. It's funny because a lot of publishing companies seem to be oblivious to the notion that people are hacking and spreading copies of their IP around the Internet. I logged on to a particular bit torrent site in front of her and she was shocked to see right at the top of the most popular downloads list at that moment was a book that her company had published and was a top seller at the time. She attempted to explain her findings to some of her co-workers only to discover that most of them had no idea what a bit torrent was or how any of this stuff worked. It's funny because I see things much the same way as you sir but also am aware that it could be my own girlfriend who's job I take in doing so. I do see hope for the publishing industry if they can manage to increase the types of media that are incorporated into the electronic publications. There needs to be a system of sharing and/or trading (something that was clearly always done with the previous model of hard-copy print), companies might even need to restructure - how many of the major publishers are not renting out prohibitively expensive office space in Manhattan? It is true that they have operating costs but if we are moving towards a technological society and we are to use these advanced tools to the fullest - perhaps breaking apart these expensive office structures is a starting point to cost savings that can be passed down to consumers who would then be willing to pay a fair price for equal quality products. The majority of the work in these settings consists individuals or small teams consisting of a few people at best. When they finish their work they send it (electronically) to the next person - even if that person is 40 feet down the hall! There is no need to have these people in the same building. If they need to collaborate there exist plenty of online collaboration tools and video conferencing to bring everyone together for meetings and presentations. Seriously...rent in MANHATTAN?!? Might as well burn the money...